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Christina Taylor Green was born on Sept. 11, 2001, becoming an American as nearly 3,000 others were reduced to ash.

She was part of the first "post-9/11 generation," a group that was the subject of innumerable newspaper, television and magazine pieces speculating on how they would develop socially, spiritually and politically. How would these kids view the world? What would America mean to them? What would they believe in, if anything at all?

Christina grew to believe she lived in the greatest country in the world and wanted to devote her life to its service. She was patriotic, funny and outgoing, the only girl to play on the local Little League team. She was recently elected to her third-grade student council and hoped to pursue a life in politics - or become the first woman to play Major League Baseball.

We only know these things about Christina because she is dead, one of six innocent people murdered by a maniac in Tucson, Ariz., last Saturday. Jared Lee Loughner, 22, is suspected of shooting 20 people, including U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, 40, who was shot through the brain at a constituent outreach event outside a supermarket. She survived, and on Wednesday afternoon, opened her eyes for the first time since the rampage. On Saturday, she was taken off a ventillator and breathing on her own.

Christina Green went to Ms. Giffords' event to learn about how our government works. She was 9 years old.

Inflaming the public

Hours after the shootings, many in the media speculated that the gunman may have been motivated by harsh tea party rhetoric aimed at Ms. Giffords, particularly by former Alaska governor, vice presidential candidate and "reality" TV star Sarah Palin. Mrs. Palin's political organization produced a map adorned with gunsights over targeted districts, including Ms. Giffords'.

When it became apparent that the shooter was mentally ill and no obvious connection to Mrs. Palin or politics could be drawn, conservative media and bloggers howled that she was the victim of political persecution and cursed the left and "lamestream media" (her term) for politicizing the tragedy.

Nice try, but the lamestream media didn't invent the Palin angle on the shootings. I'll make it simple: no map, no story. If it was so harmless, why did she have it taken down immediately after the shootings?

Aside from her map and the recent fossil record, they had the testimony of Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who dared exercise his First Amendment rights by saying: "To try to inflame the public on a daily basis 24 hours a day, seven days a week has impact on people, especially who are unbalanced personalities to begin with."

For that statement and others that were just as true, Sheriff Dupnik, a Democrat, was blasted by conservatives as everything from a fool to an incompetent to a traitor. Today's conservatives are all about free speech, so long as they agree with the speaker. If Sheriff Dupnik was a Republican and had said the shootings were a result of "liberal attacks on family values," Fox "News" would have signed him to a prime-time contract. Rush Limbaugh would be hailing him as a truth-telling hero who ought to run for president. Bill O'Reilly would be similarly enthusiastic, but struggling to pronounce the sheriff's name.

By mid-week, it remained unclear what motivated the alleged shooter, apparently a regular drug abuser who showed signs of schizophrenia. Conservatives insisted there was no connection between the poisoned nature of our politics and the shootings, which no one but the shooter can truly know.

I'll concede that many in the media jump at any chance to tapdance on Mrs. Palin, but those who claim there is no basis for raising the possibility of a connection between her map and the shootings have very short memories. For years now, conservatives have used violent imagery and gun metaphors for political gain, and Mrs. Palin has led the charge.

Hotheaded people showed up at political events armed to the teeth last summer, shouting epithets and threatening candidates and their supporters. Instead of being told to tone it down, they were egged on by tea party candidates and Republican leaders.

Nevada tea party candidate Sharron Angle, who was unsuccessful in her bid to "take out" Sen. Harry Reid said this during her campaign: "If this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking towards those Second Amendment remedies."

So, when elections don't turn out the way you'd like, violence is an option. Ms. Angle has a perfect right to bleat whatever hateful thing she likes, but anyone who doesn't find such a statement reprehensible in a democracy is to be pitied.

As past ugly statements by conservative politicians kept popping up, talk radio hosts like Michael Savage - who spews bile locally on WILK - dug up comments by President Barack Obama and former U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski as examples of Democrats using violent rhetoric. Their comments were stupid and inappropriate, but a few offhand remarks are not the same as sustained flirting with extremism. Mr. Savage routinely describes liberalism as a "mental disorder" and blasts liberals as "traitors," "deviants" and "vermin."

In a sense, Mrs. Palin's response to the tragedy was an audition for the presidency, a golden opportunity to display some of the leadership she says is so lacking in Washington. She could have called a press conference and said that while it did not appear the shooting was politically motivated, the tone of our politics has become too strident and divisive. She could have accepted her share of the blame for that, and in so doing gained the credibility to challenge her detractors to do the same.

One of the cornerstones of true leadership is the ability to admit mistakes and learn from them. Mrs. Palin, like most leaders in name only, never admits mistakes. Once again, she failed to take advantage of a chance to show her professed love of country as more than a hokey affectation that has made her millions of dollars. Instead, she responded to an e-mail from fellow Fox huckster Glenn Beck, who actually suggested that an attack on Mrs. Palin "could bring down the republic." Seriously.

"I hate violence," Mrs. Palin wrote. "I hate war. Our children will not have peace if politicos just capitalize on this to succeed in portraying anyone as inciting terror and violence."

On Wednesday, Mrs. Palin released a video on her Facebook page in which she portrayed the media as inciting terror and violence. Her attacks on others could never inspire violence, but merely questioning her could. She accused journalists of "blood libel" in suggesting she share any blame for the shootings. Blood libel was the equally false and evil claim that Jews kidnapped Christian children and used their blood to make matzoh. It has been used as an excuse to persecute and murder Jews throughout history.

The ignorance and insensitivity of using such a term, particularly in this context, is breathtaking. When you consider that Ms. Giffords is Jewish, it is mind-boggling. Many have speculated that Mrs. Palin didn't know the meaning of blood libel. If true, that is alarming, considering she is alleged to have aspirations of leading this country, home to more than 5 million American Jews and Israel's staunchest ally.

If she did know what she was saying, her use of the term is truly sickening but should surprise no one. Nor should Mrs. Palin's failure to directly engage her critics. There is no profit in that. She is a professional victim, and her primary concern is her appeal among the "Real Americans" who adore her. Like Mr. Beck, Mrs. Palin's popularity is built upon grievance. She will be a devoted divider as long as she can cash in.

So will Keith Olbermann. Flipping through the channels a week before the shooting, I landed on the stern visage of the angriest, biggest talking head at MSNBC. He showed a clip of Mrs. Palin spitting out a series of nonsensical sentence fragments, and then looked smugly into the camera and said: "That woman is an idiot."

I happen to agree, but that doesn't make saying so any less rude or inflammatory. Such acidic talk is music to the ears of Palin haters, but it naturally turns off those who love and identify with her. Mr. Olbermann sanctimoniously laments the coarseness of our politics out of one side of his snickering mouth and contributes to it out of the other.

Then he signs off with the words of the legendary Edward R. Murrow: "Good night, and good luck." Mr. Murrow was a groundbreaking journalist who never backed down from a fight but always fought fair. He was a hard-nosed newsman, but also a gentleman. He would never call a woman an idiot on national television. He would consider it beneath him and his craft.

Neither would admit it, but Keith Olbermann makes his living the same way Rush Limbaugh does, capitalizing on the political, social and economic differences between Americans. If there were no right to rail against, Keith would be left analyzing baseball on ESPN. If Rush didn't have liberals to skewer, he'd still be a Top 40 disc jockey in a minor market.

I speak as a sinner. I have written things in this space that make me cringe in retrospect. My embarrassment over them now is equal to the arrogance with which I once rejected the advice of those who prevailed in showing me that I am at my worst when I'm mean and petty.

None of this is to say that sharp criticism has no place in the arena of ideas. The world is full of fools, liars, hypocrites and predators, and many of them find their ways into positions of power. They must be challenged and exposed. The trick is challenging them without becoming them. It's a lot harder than it sounds, and pretending otherwise makes fools, liars and hypocrites of us all.

Leave it to President Barack Hussein Obama, who has weathered innumerable slurs and lies cast by Mrs. Palin and her ilk, and been sniped at by the left for not being liberal enough (whatever that means), to clear the air. In his masterfully written and delivered speech at Wednesday's memorial for the victims in Tucson, the president acknowledged that conservatives and liberals will always and necessarily have their differences, but he challenged both to make the debate "worthy" of those who were injured and killed last Saturday.

He was speaking especially of Christina Green, a bright, outgoing little girl who was born on 9/11 but didn't live to see its 10th anniversary. For all their bellyaching about overheated conservative rhetoric being tied to the shootings, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and others whose livelihoods depend on generating outrage and conflict have worked harder to make this story about them than any of their critics.

But this is not about them. It is about a third-grade student council member who went to a supermarket on a sunny Saturday morning to learn about American government and ended up in a body bag.

CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, is just exercising his First Amendment rights. Contact the writer: kellysworld@timesshamrock.com

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